Eulogy

The Watergate scandal of the 1970s made Gerald R. Ford this nation's 38th president. And it was his decision to get the nation past Watergate that confined his presidency to just 21/2 years.

Gerald R. Ford Jr., the only unelected president in United States history, died Tuesday evening at his Rancho Mirage, Calif., home. He was 93 and the nation's oldest living president.

The presidency wasn't an office that Gerald Ford ever sought. Although he had opportunities to run for the Senate or the governorship of his home state, Michigan, the office he most wanted was the speakership of the House where he had served for 25 years. As a Republican, however, that wasn't likely during a time when Democrats dominated the House. His reputation for honest dealing with his colleagues, though, earned him the House minority leadership.

But fate is sometimes ironic. In 1973 the administration of President Richard Nixon started having ethical problems. When Mr. Ford was elected to the House in 1949 he developed a friendship with then Rep. Nixon, a two-term congressman from California. In 1973 when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace after pleading no contest to tax evasion, President Nixon asked Rep. Ford to replace him.

Just half a year later, the Supreme Court ordered President Nixon to release White House tape recordings and the Watergate scandal unraveled his presidency. Rather than face an impeachment trial in the Senate, President Nixon resigned and on Aug. 9, 1974, Gerald Ford was sworn in as president, declaring, "our long national nightmare is over." He is the only person to hold the office without ever being elected to it or the vice presidency.

Watergate had so poisoned national politics that President Ford was convinced he had to put it behind the country. So at the end of his first month in office he did what he believed needed to be done even though he realized it probably would have dire political consequences for him: He pardoned President Nixon. He was right. In 1976, after surviving a tough primary challenge from California Gov. Ronald Reagan, he lost a close election to Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter.

In between the pardon and loss, President Ford crammed more into his brief presidency than many presidents accomplish in two terms. He ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam, signed the Helsinki human rights accord, an arms reduction treaty with the former Soviet Union, brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt, and freed the crew of the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez from Cambodian communists. He put principle before politics and considered truth essential to government.

There is a divisiveness in this country today almost as poisonous as Watergate that wants the kind of leadership Gerald Ford once gave the nation. In an era of polarizing partisanship, we need a man of his principle to rekindle America's promise. The United States has lost a man of solid, honest example, a leader rarely found.